Kenneth Copeland, leader of Christian über-capitalists everywhere, has spawned a generation of prosperity preachers. Among them, Creflo Dollar, a boistrous preacher that vaunts such heresies as
"Man is equal to God in every respect. Or, in the words of Copeland, 'You don't have a God in you! You are one!'"
Or, for Gnostics everywhere, Creflo opines,
"Jesus was not the son of God, he was a man empowered by God to be just like God, and everyone who knows this can do the same thing."
And just to reinforce the salacious savvy of Creflo's dollar avarice,
"Any Christian who believes in poverty is outside God's will."
Wow! Hot damn, those are zingers, aren't they?! Mmm-hmm. Always nice to know that God really isn't who He said He is, and that we can step-up and not only have God in us, but be God, too. And then, we can demand of ourselves that we will not accept a divine Christ, but instead, will just go after the same empowerment that Christ had and become 'just like God' (oddly, that sounds quite a lot like the original temptation, doesn't it?). At the same time, we can just add a little venemous contradiction into the mix and be outside our own wills (remember, we're God, according to Copeland and his ilk) because we might just believe in poverty.
Oh, God! the stupidity... Hey, did I just lament to myself when I wrote that?
4 comments:
I wasn't going to comment, but I guess I am not as in control as a high level gnostic.
I would be shocked to see Kenneth Copeland in heaven.
This is no doubt the very same gnosticism that the first century church fought with incredible tenacity.
There are two kinds of denying Jesus has come in the flesh. One that says He never was divine or God and fully human, or one that runs alongside Christ and proclaims itself as divine as Jesus. Either way, Jesus' Divinity is denied.
That is incredible heresy, the kind that winds you up in hell.
Kenneth Copeland is the second type, essentially denying our difference from Christ. That is what happens, that when you pursue what you want in religion for yourself, then you beome as dumb spiritually as a two-by-four! Kenneth can't even perceive that "God alone is God and we are not." (Psalm 100 as one example).
There are so many theological holes in gnosticism, I will only mention one. Since Kenneth Copeland believes God reproduced himself literally in Adam, then how does the eternal God reproduce Himself (this is 1st century gnositicism to the tee) and still stay "eternal" and "uncreated?"
Copeland said:
"He (Adam) was not subordinate to God even. . . . Adam is as much like God as you could get, just the same as Jesus. . . . Adam, in the Garden of Eden, was God manifested in the flesh."
In Christ's case Jesus was with the Father, eternally as John 1:1 points out, and the "ONLY begotten" element of His Sonship was later understood by the Church Fathers to be an "eternal begetting." In other words, even the begotten element of Christ's divinity has no "creating" to it, outside the human factor of the body. This is why theology becomes important, so that those who handle God's word may "handle accurately the word of truth" (II Tim 2:15). In Adam and Eve they could die, they were from the dust of the earth, and they existed not before that moment. When Jesus lived He said "I am the resurrection and the life." Jesus died in body, but even then He was eternal life, manifesting this reality at His resurrection. Last time I checked, no one else rose from the dead physically and ascended to the right hand of God to co-rule with Him in that resurrected body.
"Hmmm, yeah, we're just like Jesus....hmmmm..if I stand in front of that car, it can't hurt me...o.k. now that I am run over I am not really bleeding...well, now that I am hurting and bleeding, I can't die...oh boy, I don't feel so good...wait, don't trust your feelings,...you're better than that.. just speak a word of faith,...because you're just like God...hey...where am I? Is this sheol or hell?...that's o.k., I'll just raise myself from the dead,...because Kenneth Copeland told me I'm just like God exactly the way Jesus was...I rebuke this lie of death...I rebuke it now in the name of Jesus..."
Chris:
"Oh. God! the stupidity...Hey, did I just lament to myself when I wrote that?"
No Chris, you only lamented how Satan has deceived if possible, even the elect.
Justin Peters is an expert on Copeland and the likes. Check out the video on his web site: http:/www.justinpeters.org. He gave this seminar in its entirety at my church and comes highly recommended by my pastor, Dr. John MacArthur.
I've never watched Copeland, but I have watched Dollar and he is far out! When I saw him on TV, he quoted a section from one of Job's advisers and took it as a biblical teaching. I don't think a person does that by mistake, and therefore, I suspect that he's probably being an opportunist. Although, I guess that I should watch what I say.
About the gods thing though, what do you do with this? John 10:34-37
I wondered if we are gods in the sense that we have a freewill, a higher capacity for thought than the majority of living things and an eternal spirit?
John 14:12 is also interesting.
In what way will we do greater works than him?
Craig,
That is an interesting Scripture in John. If you read the Old Testament reference the theme is about God as Judge of the "gods" or humans that are "God's children" (Psalm 82). I think Jesus was talking to Jews who really knew Scripture well, and He was communicating the essence of that Judge theme in Psalm 82 and co-relating that to His present day, that the Father was the real judge of who Christ was, and "by His works" being "the works of the Father," the Jews present were to see that God was judging Christ as "the Son of God." Similar here was Paul's method in Athens to relate his preaching to a relevant context.
It is interesting Christ chose to do it this way, and I do think the "imago dei" comes into it. I wrote a recent post on this.
With regards John 14:12, I rememember looking that up, and although I don't have those sources with me, I believe it can mean "more works." Now, this could be either collectively as God's church or individually. Christ's ministry was only 3 1/2 years, while ours God willing can be considerably longer, affording "more works."
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